Healing the Breach
by mattmetzger
Summary: Although the trip to the countryside had been a complete disaster, Jack wondered if it hadn't served to do what he meant it to, and begin to bring together his shattered team. Ianto-centric, with a special focus on Tosh and Ianto's friendship.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: sort-of sequel to Being Okay, though you don't really need to read that one too. Set directly after Countryside and, obviously, spoilers for that episode, and for Cyberwoman.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood and I am not making any profit from this work.**

**Healing the Breach**

**Chapter One**

Jack reflected, moodily, that hospital coffee was quite possibly the most appalling beverage that he'd ever drunk in his entire, century-spanning life. And it wasn't just twenty-first century hospital coffee either - he was pretty sure every hospital he'd ever been in, in any time, that had given out free coffee, had given out _disgusting _free coffee.

Still, they'd been waiting for two hours already and it couldn't really take that much longer. Owen was talking quietly to Tosh in the corner - probably finding out what had happened in the filthy cottage that they'd finally ended the entire, disastrous outing in. She was pale and shaky and had needed a lot of little plastic cups full of water, but she only had scratched and bruising.

Not like Gwen and Ianto.

They were at Hereford, it being closer than Cardiff, though not by a lot. Jack, Owen and Tosh had followed two ambulances to Hereford County Hospital, screaming along the roads at a stupidly fast pace. Jack was pretty sure that couldn't have been good for either patient - neither gunshot wounds nor broken ribs liked being thrown around in a vehicle moving at seventy miles an hour along roads that weren't especially straight.

"Dr. Harper?"

Jack glanced up to watch Owen move a little way away with a white-coated, greying man. He wasn't surprised. He had dealt with the police and Owen had dealt with the paramedics. A doctor was probably more likely to be able to bend the rules to their satisfaction anyway, and Jack had been willing to let Owen deal with it, with two team members seriously injured.

When Owen returned, and the doctor waited impatiently, he bent to Jack's level.

"They're holding Gwen for a few days," he said, and neither were surprised. "They're going to let us take Ianto back to Cardiff, though. They're recommending we check him in at the Royal Infirmary for more x-rays to confirm what they think. They're going to give me the reference notes we'll need to get that done."

"What do they think?" Jack asked.

"Three fractured ribs, one with what looks to be a hairline crack, and a good ten ribs severely bruised," Owen grimaced. "Broken wrist - they've set and strapped that - a sprained knee that could have torn ligaments, and a hell of a lot of bruising. He's lucky though. Tosh says they went for him with a baseball bat and a crowbar. He could have lost his leg if they'd hit him properly with a crowbar."

Jack knew, and his grimace matched Owen's.

"Right," he muttered. "We're taking him, then? No patient transport?"

Owen snorted: "It's the NHS."

"Has someone called Rhys?"

"I did it earlier. Should be here in about half an hour. Gwen can manage, Jack, she's not going anywhere and she'll be knocked out by now. But I think we need to get Ianto over to Cardiff as soon as we can. With a ribcage in that state, he'd better be doped to high heaven," Owen muttered.

Jack nodded, drew a ragged breath, and pulled himself together.

"Right."

* * *

When Jack returned from fetching the SUV and stowing away the workstations to make the back seat as spacious as possible, he found Ianto (in one of those plastic hospital wheelchairs that always looked a bit too rickety for a job), Tosh and Owen standing (sitting) in an awkward, silent cluster. Owen took over pushing Ianto out of the doors and towards the car, but not a word had apparently been exchanged.

So much for Jack's aim of getting the team to bond a bit during their trip.

As they worked out how to get Ianto into the SUV and settled comfortably, Jack noted that Ianto didn't even try contributing to his and Owen's conversation, nor was he talking to Tosh. Tosh, though, had settled her hand on Ianto's shoulder gingerly, and looked like she wanted nothing more than to get down to his level and hug him.

"I'll go in the back with him," Owen said decisively. "I'll be best equipped to help if something goes wrong or he needs doping up on the drive home. If we lean one of the seats back, we should get him comfortable enough to sleep upright."

"Upright?" Jack asked doubtfully.

"Broken ribs, Jack. Upright is more comfortable than flat on your back any day, especially when moving around in a car on Welsh roads," Owen pointed out.

They wrestled with the seat behind the front passenger one, where Tosh would be. And Tosh sitting there, being small enough to comfortable and safely curl up fully on one of the seats, meant that they could push it right forward to give Ianto as much space as possible. The manoeuvring to get Ianto into the SUV and settled comfortably was nigh-on impossible - he was tense, in a hell of a lot of pain, and barely able to move. Even standing was painful, and bending to sit in the car and resettle resulted in his having to bite back a scream at one point. Owen was fairly sure that the Welshman had bitten through his lip twice in the whole process.

"I'll take that back," Owen said, seizing the wheelchair as he eased out of the SUV again. "Tosh, get yourself comfortable in the front."

As he dashed off, and Jack made to get in the driver's seat, Tosh quickly grasped one of Ianto's shaking hands.

"Thank you," she murmured, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before closing the car door and getting into the front, toeing off her shoes and curling up on the seat. She caught Ianto's surprised and slightly confused eyes in the rearview mirror before Owen returned and the car dipped slightly, making Ianto wince and close his eyes.

Tosh had a feeling that this was going to be a long drive home.

* * *

They were passing signs for, ironically, St. Owen's Cross, when Owen yelled for Jack to stop the car. At the same moment as Jack slammed on the brakes, Owen tore a sick bag from his medical kit and got it before Ianto's face just in time as he threw up violently and probably painfully.

"Shit!" Jack swore. "What the hell?!"

"Medication, pain, travel sickness, whatever," Owen said grimly as Ianto slumped back again with a deep groan and a few Welsh words that were probably not for children's ears. He leaned over and tossed the used bag out onto the verge, before turning to Ianto. "Any particular reason for that, mate? You want some more painkillers."

"No," Ianto rasped out, and a look of faint irritation crossed Jack's features.

"Ianto, for God's sake, just take the meds," he snapped. "You're just going to hurt worse and probably damage yourself if you don't."

Ianto's eyes flashed, and he opened his mouth for a biting retort, but Tosh didn't give him the chance, throwing open her door and marching around determinedly to Owen's side of the car.

"Out," she snapped, opening his door, and he stared at her. "Out! I can handle giving him pills and passing him a sick bag, Owen! Just let me sit with him; it'll be better for all of us."

Owen didn't argue with this assertive side of Tosh, and they swapped. After a few minute of readjusting the front seat for Owen's larger frame, Jack eased the car forward again, and kept the motion as smooth as possible.

Glancing in the rearview mirror some time later, he noticed that Ianto seemed to have dozed off, and had Tosh's head resting on his shoulder.

Maybe the trip hadn't been a _complete_ disaster after all.

* * *

The rest of the drive, for Ianto, was a hazy mixture of pain, drug-induced dozing, and flashes of vague conversation around him. Occasionally, he heard himself moan when the SUV jolted his ribs, but it was a very detached existence.

_"Surely that's a faster route?"_

_"It is, but it's a rural one. It'll jolt him about like a sack of potatoes."_

He fuzzily wondered where Gwen was. He hadn't seen her since the paramedics had got their hands on him at the village. He hadn't heard her either, which was probably a more accurate way of judging things right now. After a little while, though, the train of thought got too much to keep track of, and his mind wandered.

_"How's he doing?"_

_"Asleep, I think."_

He was never, _ever _going out to the Beacons again. Ever. In a million years. He hadn't liked his first trip there, when he was about eight and his older brother had pushed him in a river and it was cold and filthy and he'd had to spent a night in a tent and it was pissing it down with rain. He hadn't liked his second trip up there with his first girlfriend, and he'd dumped her shortly afterwards. And he really, _really _hadn't liked this trip - his third and last.

He wasn't even going to go out to the country anymore. His father had been right - the countryside _was_ full of freaks, weirdos and psychopaths. And dirty ones too.

_"Newport. That's close, right?"_

_"Yes, Harkness, that's close. Jesus Christ."_

He _felt _dirty. He felt sticky and grimy, like there was soil on his clothes and in his hair, and the sticky, itchy pull of bloody scabs on his hands and face. His skin felt thick and greasy and all he really, really wanted was a long, hot shower. And then a bed, and the ability to sleep for a month until he felt fine again.

"Ianto? Ianto?"

He tore his eyes open and found himself staring blearily at Tosh, who was squeezing his hand in an attempt to wake him up a bit.

"We're back at the Hub," she said. "Owen wants to know if you'd like to go to the hospital, or if you'd prefer him to treat you here."

"No hospital," Ianto ground out. He wasn't particularly happy about Owen having to treat him instead, but he really didn't want the hospital. He hadn't liked hospitals ever since witnessing his father dying in one. Not something a thirteen-year-old kid appreciated. He'd never gotten over the fear of going into a hospital only to wind up dead himself.

"Alright," he heard Owen's voice from somewhere. "But if those ribs are actually _broken_, Jones, you're going to a damn hospital. Understood?"

"Mm."

"I'm going to sedate you, though. You'll go nuts if we try and move you in that state too much. Ready?"

Ianto didn't respond. He didn't even feel the prick of the needle going in, just heard a funny sigh from Tosh and then the sound of the car doors opening before he faded away entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Just mild fractures," Owen announced, putting down the scanner and folding his arms, staring up at Jack, who was leant on the railings peering into the autopsy bay. "They're not actually broken, though if he gets bashed again, they will be."

"So, no hospital?" Jack asked.

"Not if he doesn't want to go. It shouldn't be necessary," Owen said. "I've strapped them up; they'll heal on their own. They haven't moved at all, as far as I can tell. There's nothing I can do to speed up the healing process; nothing a hospital can do either."

Ianto was lying flat out on the autopsy table, in just his mud-caked jeans, and completely unconscious. They had left him in the car while Owen and Jack brought up a stretcher from the autopsy bay and struggled to get him down the lift and into the bay without further injury. Jack had then offered to run Tosh home, but she had refused, and looked now like she was considering camping out on the sofa for the night.

"How long until he wakes up?" Jack asked, nodding at Ianto's prone form.

"Two hours, at least," Owen said. "He's exhausted, though, so it'll probably be longer. Do you...want him to be kept here, or not?"

Jack shot him a narrow-eyed look.

"What?" he snapped.

"Well, do you want him here, or do you still want him nowhere near the Hub or Torchwood?" Owen asked bluntly.

"You're the doctor," Jack snapped back, the glare melting into a scowl effortlessly. "You make the decision."

"It wouldn't make much difference. I'd still have to keep an eye on him - here or his flat, doesn't matter to me," Owen shrugged. "But you've not exactly made it much of a secret that you still don't like having him around in the slightest."

"Am I supposed to, after...what he did?" Jack said. "You saw how well he kept that secret; I'm not sure we know who Ianto _is_."

"He's a good man, is what he is," Owen said, surprising the both of them. "Tosh told me that he saved her life tonight; possibly even twice over."

"I know. And I'm taking it into account, but he still nearly killed the team, nearly destroyed the world," Jack said. "I can't just let him off."

Owen stayed quiet for a long time, before marching up out of the autopsy bay and coming close to Jack, inches from his face, and almost echoing Gwen in a way that was...incredibly spooky, coming from Owen.

"He's torturing himself enough, and you and I both know it," Owen hissed. "I don't know you, Harkness, and I don't know if you're even _capable _of loving someone as much as he blatantly loved that girl, but I do. I _know _that kind of love, I've _been _in his position of being helpless to stop losing someone. And let me tell you, if that...thing...had been Katie - if Katie had been in...Lisa's position...then I would be in Ianto's position, and you'd better believe it. If there had been _anything_...I would have done it."

"You would have endangered the _world _for Katie?" Jack snapped.

There was a long, nasty pause, before Owen gritted his teeth and snapped: "Yes, Jack, I would. Obviously you have _no _idea what it's like to be that much in love. If I'd had to choose...I would have chosen Katie. Got that, Harkness?"

He didn't give Jack time to reply before running his hand through his hair, swearing vehemently, and turning on his heel to stalk off elsewhere. Seeing as he was growling about needing a coffee, probably Costa.

* * *

They all stayed in the Hub that night. Each one of them - bar Ianto, who hadn't woken up by the time Owen and Tosh were settling to sleep and Jack had disappeared into his office - suspected that there were going to be some awful, raging, boiling nightmares, and they instinctively didn't want to be alone.

Aliens gave you bad dreams, but people gave you nightmares.

From somewhere, Owen had dug out a campbed. By now, he suspected it had been Ianto's, because it was painfully obvious to him, a doctor, that Lisa would have needed almost round-the-clock care. It had been tucked away in the entrance to the main archive rooms, and he and Tosh had lugged it upstairs between them and set it up by the sofa.

It was gloomy in the Hub, but not dark. Owen had left the lights on in the autopsy bay, with a blanket slung haphazardly over the sleeping Welshman, and Tosh's computer was glowing and humming contentedly to itself.

"Playing games?" Owen had asked, nodding at it, and Tosh gave him a little smile.

"Takes my mind off things," she said, as he handed her one of the coffees he'd managed to get from Costa. "Thanks. Is Ianto...?"

"Still asleep."

She took a sip of the still-hot coffee, paused, and said: "I heard what you said to Jack."

Owen stiffened.

"It was...nice of you," she continued, either oblivious or ignoring him. "I think Jack...doesn't quite see us, sometimes."

"You mean he's an oblivious git?"

"Something like that," Tosh giggled, shooting a nervous look up to Jack's office. "I don't know...I think he sometimes thinks the thoughts and emotions of...ordinary people?...are weird. He can't..._see_...how Ianto's doing now."

"You mean shit?" Owen asked bluntly.

Tosh blinked at him.

"I am his doctor," Owen shrugged. "I have to know some things. And let me tell you, seeing his medical file updated to say he's back on antidepressants is not a nice sight."

"Why?" Tosh whispered. "If it's helping..."

"He's not taking them," Owen said bluntly. "I've seen people on those things before - lots of times. Hell, my roommate at medical school had to pop three a day to keep him from climbing the walls around the exam period. And trust me, the tea-boy's either not taking them, or they're about as effective as placebos the patient knows about."

Tosh smiled, put down her coffee, squeezed Owen's hand, let it go, and picked up her coffee again.

"It's...nice to know I'm not the only one looking out for him," she murmured.

"Yeah, well..." Owen shrugged awkwardly. "He's a good bloke, you know?"

"Mhmm," Tosh nodded, biting her lip. "I just...I don't know if...it's enough, Owen? What if...?"

"I think if he would, it would have happened by now," Owen interrupted. "He's not a spontaneous man. It would have happened in his suspension, if at all."

"But mightn't...today...?"

Owen thought about it, frowned, and shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "We'd best just keep an eye on him. Might be in too much pain to think about it properly for a bit."

"...I don't want him to..."

"Nobody does."

"Jack sometimes acts like it," Tosh snapped bitterly, then looked surprised at herself.

"Jack doesn't understand us mere mortals, like you said," Owen replied, though they were unaware as to the truth of his assessment.

Tosh opened her mouth to reply, but froze, and her eyes flicked over to the top of the autopsy. A second later, she put down her coffee and rushed to the rails, leaning over to gaze down into the pit.

"Ianto!" she cried.

* * *

Jack watched Owen and Tosh talking from his office, though he couldn't hear a thing of their conversation, and he had positioned himself so that, hopefully, if they looked up, they wouldn't see him. They seemed to be in deep, quiet talk of the non-trivial kind, and he found himself appreciating that the worst disaster of a mission they'd _ever _taken on might have done the trick in bringing the team back together.

At the same time, he found that he didn't like that.

He wanted two different and mutually exclusive things. He wanted the whole team - himself, Owen, Tosh, Gwen and Ianto - to be a proper team. To get on and be friends and work together cohesively, efficiently, and happily. But at the same time, he wanted Ianto Jones nowhere near himself, Torchwood, or his team.

It had been unusual, in Jack's long life, for anyone to successfully con him, let alone for that long. It had been even rarer for the conman to be especially close to Jack in the first place. Jack _knew _people - he knew how to read them, how to react them, and how to tell when they were lying, even if he couldn't tell what the lie actually was.

But Ianto...Ianto had been a closed book.

That frightened Jack. The realisation that a man he had admired, had lusted after, had liked, had valued meeting and knowing, and had hoped would become better integrated into both his life and the team...had turned out to be the most dangerous man _on _the team.

He knew Tosh sympathised with Ianto, after the fact. He knew Owen would, to some extent, understand the position Ianto had been in. He knew Gwen didn't know _what _to think about the whole issue. And he knew that he himself couldn't just let Ianto off the hook like had seemed to happen.

He'd been suspended.

He should have been shot.

Jack still didn't quite know what had stopped him from pulling the trigger. He _should have shot him_. Ianto should have _died _for that travesty - he should have been executed there and then in the basement, with the monster that he'd almost unleased on mankind.

Only...Jack couldn't quite bring himself to believe that.

A brilliant, incredible mind lurked behind Ianto's eyes. He could almost be called genius for what he'd done. He would certainly have been an asset to them - to Torchwood One even more, and Jack was shocked he had kept it all hidden and stayed in archiving.

Jack watched as Tosh and Owen suddenly left their spots by the sofa and returned to the autopsy bay, Owen disappearing down into it and Tosh remaining at the railing. Even at a distance, Jack could see her anxious expression.

He elected to remain where he was, for the moment, and watch. They knew he was up in his office, at any rate. They could yell if they needed him. He wasn't needed down there yet.

Whether it was because he didn't want to see Ianto, or because Ianto wouldn't want to see him, he wasn't quite sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"I wouldn't try sitting up, if I were you," a voice said, and Ianto scowled.

"Thank you, Owen," he muttered. "Like I couldn't have figured that out for myself."

"Just thought I'd warn you. Now, you feel like actually opening your eyes so I can actually tell if you're going to snuff it or you're just lazy and can't be bothered to get up?"

"Thought I wasn't supposed to get up?"

"Not literally, arsehole."

"Turn the lights down then. Or off. Off is good."

"Down," Owen said, and did so. Ianto edged his eyes open then, squinting a little, and saw Tosh's face way off.

"What are you doing up there?" he mumbled, and Owen frowned.

"You feeling headachey at all? Dizzy?" he asked, examining Ianto's eyes critically.

"No. Just sleepy. And pincushiony."

"You what?" Owen demanded as Tosh laughed quietly and came down the steps to hear better.

"Like somebody fluffed me up like a cushion and stuck pins in me."

"Well, that's pretty accurate," Owen mused. "Want some more painkillers? Cos I can knock you out again, if you like."

"No thanks," Ianto groused. "Want to go home."

"Unsupervised care is out," Owen said flatly. "You're barely able to move. You're going to need someone. And as far as I tell, that's basically me, tea-boy."

"Home," Ianto insisted. "Not staying here."

"Hospital?"

"No!"

"Jesus, fine," Owen grumbled. "There's better facilities here to keep you under until it starts to heal, you know."

"Still going to hurt like a motherfucker at the end, so I'm not staying here," Ianto growled. "The Hub is painful enough."

That, more than anything, spoke to the other two of the sedatives not having entirely left Ianto's system yet. Owen remembered a time - months ago now - when Ianto had gotten electrocuted by an alien they'd been chasing through the dire _pit _that was Newport. He'd had to be drugged six ways to Sunday to even touch the pain, and for two days whilst they'd keep him drugged up to his eyeballs, he'd suddenly been like an open book. He'd even burst into tears at one point. It seemed that this time wasn't going to be any different.

"Right," Owen said, deciding that if Ianto was going to revert to a mess of emotions, they'd probably better get him home. Everybody felt more comfortable losing it at home anyway. "Okay. If you go home, you're going to have to put up with somebody staying with you until you don't look and feel like mashed potato."

"You or Tosh?" Ianto summarised.

"Pretty much," Owen said. Like Tosh, he couldn't imagine Ianto would be too delighted at the prospect of Jack around at the moment. Then again, Jack wouldn't be too keen on the idea either.

Ianto barely thought about it before saying, "Okay."

* * *

It was the middle of the night, but Ianto had wanted to go home, so here the team were, minus Gwen, standing in Ianto's flat wondering what to do. Owen had enlisted Jack to help move Ianto again, and the awkward silences and heavy looks had said everything. Now, with Ianto in bed and drugged again, and Tosh setting up camp in Ianto's tiny spare room, Owen and Jack stood in the middle of the box-like living room and stared at each other.

"Things will get back to normal," Jack said in the quiet, and Owen snorted.

"I hope not," he snapped, "cos 'normal' wasn't exactly fantastic in the first place, was it, Jack?"

"You're staying here?" Jack asked, ignoring the comment for the moment.

"Yes," Owen said. "The tea-boy's a heavy son of a bitch. Tosh won't really be able to help him by herself, but she's sticking to him like glue at the moment."

"Can't say I blame her," Jack muttered, and Owen nodded. "I'll go back to the Hub. I'll check up on how Gwen's doing in the morning as well," Jack added, and Owen nodded again.

"Night," he said briskly, and firmly shut Jack out before turning and wondering how, exactly, he was going to sleep on that tiny sofa.

'Tiny' was...Ianto's whole flat, really. It was a series of boxes joined by a series of poster tube boxes. The furniture was sparse - Owen counted himself lucky that Ianto owned a sofa at all. The bathroom was even less than a box, and the kitchen looked like something out of a crappy rural soap - small, scratched, and _covered _in photographs. They were tacked to everything, even the toaster. And that was probably a fire hazard in itself. They'd _had _to get Ianto up and walking to get him into the bedroom at all, at which point Owen had cut the crap and simply knocked him out for the night.

"Jack's gone?" Tosh asked, emerging from the spare room with a bundle of cloth in her arms. "Here. I found Ianto's wardrobe. They're dressing gowns; I'm sure he won't mind us borrowing them if we wash them later, and..."

"Tosh, he's completely under," Owen said, taking one gratefully. "He won't care if we let rampaging Weevils through here with chainsaws. He won't _notice_."

Tosh thought about that for a moment, then gave Owen a mischievous little smile.

"So he won't mind if we explore, right?"

* * *

Jack spent that night and most of the next day brooding. He was tired, cross, anxious, irritable and generally wound up tight enough to snap at any given moment. Not only had cannibals - fucking _cannibals _- dared to _touch _his team, but his team was blatantly fractured and centring again around, of all people, Ianto Jones.

In the Hub, alone, everything was too quiet. The coffee machine wasn't grinding. No keyboards were clicking. But then, it had been quiet for a while now. Ianto and Owen hadn't been bantering of late, there were no soft conversations between Ianto and Tosh at her workstations...

In fact, when Jack thought about it, Ianto didn't seem to really say much of anything anymore. Okay, he'd always been a bit quiet, but he spoke when spoken to. Now, sometimes, he didn't even do that - just gave a non-verbal response to a question and vanished again.

Sitting at his desk, Jack logged out of his own user account and entered Ianto's. It was easy enough. They all knew the rest of the team could access their accounts easily - even if they forgot all the passwords, there was still Tosh to do it - and Ianto himself, come to think of it. But Tosh was better than Ianto, from what Jack could tell. He wouldn't be able to keep secrets on his account.

Jack was just...a little worried that he hadn't been trying to keep secrets.

The folder labelled 'out' screamed like a beacon, in the middle of the screen, and Jack knew he'd found something even as he clicked on it and found a long list of documents, all saved with dates as their names.

Day after day after day.

Beginning the day he'd returned from his suspension.

Jack opened one at random - Wednesday fourteenth - and read it. Short, not sweet, and frighteningly to the point.

He opened another.

Another.

Another.

He didn't like anything of what he read.

* * *

Owen kept Ianto drugged for three days, even getting hold of a makeshift bedpan - though Tosh refused point-blank to aid Ianto in_ that _respect, thank you very much. Three days of awkward quiet hours and sharing a flat that didn't belong to them got Owen and Tosh talking, and by the fourth day, they had a continuous game of Scrabble with questionable rules going on Ianto's coffee table. It included words that probably didn't exist either in their timeline, or on their planet.

On the fourth day, Ianto refused the drugs. The bruising to his chest was stark - black and purple and ugly blue against white skin, and when Tosh first saw it properly and up close, when helping him to sit up in the bed, she cried and hugged his undamaged shoulder gingerly. There, Ianto and Owen found common ground: neither knew what to do with a crying female.

Once sitting up, it was easy enough for Ianto to drink, eat, and read so he didn't expire from boredom instead. At this point, Owen and Tosh semi-returned to their jobs, paying frequent visits rather than actually living in the flat. Though it was probably something to do with the fact that Ianto hadn't been all that pleased about them living in his flat.

On the sixth day, Gwen came to see him, which surprised Ianto.

"Where have you been?" he asked, and she stared.

"You...don't remember? I stayed in the hospital."

"Gwen, I was barely conscious. I don't remember most of...that night," Ianto pointed out.

He hadn't actually let Gwen in yet. She hadn't had a key, and had rung the bell. He thought she would have gone away by the time he got there, and when he _did _get there and realised it was Gwen, he really wished she'd gone away. He had stood in the doorway, immovable and largely unwilling to let her into his home. He hadn't wanted the rest of the team in there, and he wasn't going to add to that number now.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I came to talk to you," she said stiffly, with a little frown.

Ianto gestured for her to go on. She bit her lip, shifted her weight from foot to foot, then blurted out:

"Why did Jack let you come back?"

Ianto scowled, and Gwen rushed on.

"After all that happened, he let you come back. He said you put the world at risk. Did you?"

"Yes," Ianto snapped.

"So why did he let you come back?" Gwen insisted. "What _are _you to Torchwood? What makes you so...special?"

Ianto growled deep in his throat. If he could, he would have leaned in to be nose-to-nose with her, but he settled instead for: "And what makes you think _you_, the new girl, are _special _enough to question the great Jack Harkness? Do me a favour, Gwen. When you persuade him he made the wrong decision, send him over to shoot me. I'd like to be executed in the comforts of my own home, away from the fucking team, got it?"

He shut the door in her wide eyes, and turned towards the kitchen.

Coffee.

Now.

* * *

Jack looked up from the files in his hands when Gwen barged into his office, completely unannounced. She could only have looked angrier if the pinches of pain in her face melted away, and they wouldn't for a while anyway.

"Why did you let Ianto come back?" she demanded, folding her arms and staring Jack down.

"Excuse me?"

"Why did you let Ianto come back? I thought it was Torchwood procedure to retcon people who did...that sort of thing."

"Betrayal, Gwen, say it loud and clear," Jack muttered, putting the files down. "I don't know," he admitted. "We can't seem to function without Ianto any more. We need him here; we're running on empty as it is."

"You said he put the whole world in danger. Is that not true, then?"

"It's true."

"Then why did you not retcon him?!" Gwen demanded. "You retconned me and I didn't know _anything_ like that! I didn't _do_ anything like that!"

"I didn't think you would be coming back," Jack pointed out. "Gwen, Ianto was an employee with Torchwood One as well. Hence...that thing in the basement. He worked for Torchwood London since he was nineteen or so. I can't - we can't - destroy that much memory. It would drive him mad. You can't help but notice that kind of memory loss. Retcon is for _short term _memory loss, not _years _of your life."

Gwen subsided, biting her lip.

"Why are you suddenly so insistent that Ianto is thrown out of Torchwood?" Jack demanded.

Gwen fell quiet, flushed, fidgeted, and sank into the chair on the other side of Jack's desk.

"I just think...it would have been...kinder," she murmured.

"What?!" Jack demanded.

"...We saw it...that day...and then in the countryside...and I was just over there and he's still _hurting_, and Owen says...Owen said that he cried in his sleep a lot when...just after it happened," Gwen explained haltingly. "I just...maybe it would have been kinder, Jack. He wouldn't be in so much _pain _that way."

"He would go mad," Jack said shortly. "The real choice, Gwen, was to kill him or not. And I was not going to have him executed."

"...Why not just...let him go?" Gwen suggested hesitantly. "Why not...let him walk away?"

"We can't let him. Nobody walks away, Gwen."

After a moment, she gave a look that Jack couldn't quite read, before rising from the chair and stiffly walking out. As the door swung shut behind her, Jack ran his hands through his hair and sighed heavily.

Perhaps it was time that he paid Ianto a visit himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

It was a week to the day since the countryside trip when Jack let himself into Ianto's flat, unannounced and not even bothering to knock. He knew that injured people slept a lot, and he kind of hoped that Ianto would be asleep and he could put off this...

What?

Confrontation, probably. Because Jack knew that this wasn't going to be easy, wasn't going to be pretty, and could well end up in a screaming match. The night Lisa died had really proved that Ianto had one hell of a temper when he was angered enough. Jack's jaw _still _twinged occasionally.

"What do you want?"

The voice startled Jack, and he blinked himself back into Ianto's flat, into Ianto's living room. Ianto himself was standing in the kitchen doorway, nursing a steaming mug between both hands, and glaring across the tiny room at him. The young man was pale and haggard; his posture was anything but relaxed, and the bulky strapping on his wrist seemed to attract all Jack's attention for a good minute.

"What do you want?" Ianto repeated, and he sounded tired.

"To speak to you," Jack answered finally, and Ianto sighed.

"Gwen go off on one?" he asked.

"...She came here."

"Yes."

"She came to me, yesterday afternoon," Jack said. "Made me realise - among other things, really - that you and me need to talk."

Ianto said nothing, and the glare didn't diminish at all. With a heavy sigh, Jack drew the documents that he'd printed from Ianto's account and handed them over, willing to get some response, anything, but Ianto barely glanced at the first one before setting them aside on the coffee table and returning to the kitchen doorway.

"Ianto," Jack said quietly, "they're effectively suicide notes."

"They _are _suicide notes," Ianto corrected.

"You're suicidal."

"Congratulations," Ianto muttered. "Whatever gave you that idea? Yes, Jack. I watched my colleagues have their brains ripped out of their heads, I suffer nightmares every night and have done since London burned, my girlfriend was nearly killed, and then the colleagues who ignored me finished the job. In front of me. After demanding that _I_ kill her. Just to top it off, not a month later, I nearly get eaten by insane Welsh cannibals. What part of that would make me keen to cling on to life?"

"Ianto...with the Glove...you know - we all know - that there's nothing _there_...Lisa...isn't _there_, Ianto. Killing yourself won't _solve _anything."

"It would solve everything," Ianto said bitterly. "I wouldn't have to keep moving though this fucking abysmal existence. An eternity of nothing sounds a lot better than an eternity of complete _pain_, doesn't it, Jack?"

His voice and tone were so detached, as though he were reading aloud a newspaper report about the stock market. His eyes were empty and blank, and that, more than anything, frightened Jack. No matter how angry he was with Ianto, he still cared about the young man. The Welshman was brilliant, clever, funny, and incredibly good-looking. He had everything going for him, could do anything he wanted...but he had fallen in love, and it would destroy him.

That prospect was _terrifying_.

"You think you're the only one who's lost anything, Ianto? You're not! Owen has, I have, Tosh has! God, I think Gwen's the only one who hasn't _been _in these shoes!" Jack yelled, losing his temper.

"_You understand fucking nothing_!" Ianto bellowed.

Silence. Short, stilted, and sinister.

"If you know what it's like, to lose someone that you love so completely and utterly that they define _who you are_, then you would never have asked me to kill her, you wouldn't be _punishing_ me because you would understand that I'm doing that pretty well on my own!" Ianto seethed. "If you _understood_, Jack, then you would get the fuck out of my flat and _leave me alone_!"

The second silence was longer, but only just.

"Time will..." Jack began eventually.

"Do nothing," Ianto interrupted shortly. "Time did nothing for Owen and it will do nothing for me. Look at him, Jack. He's still twisted up with grief about what happened to his girl, and you think I want to spend the rest of my life drinking myself into a stupor just to forget her body on the basement floor?"

"You can recover from the trauma, Ianto, you just have to get through..." Jack tried desperately, and Ianto snorted, one hand moving gingerly to his ribs.

"You want to know what's going on in my head?" Ianto demanded. "You want to know? Here you go. When that fucking psycho was waving a meat cleaver at my throat, you know what I was thinking? I was about to die, and all I could think was 'at fucking last'. You hear me, Jack? Is that getting through your thick, flirtatious skull? I was _glad _that the son of a bitch was going to kill me, because then it would be_ over_!"

The silence that rang through the flat was heavy and oppressive. For a long, tense minute, Jack and Ianto simply stared at each other, hostile and desperate and neither sure if the situation had gotten out of control, or was going to deteriorate further.

"You ordered me to murder the girl I loved," Ianto said quietly, his eyes finally moving away from Jack to the window. "You ordered me to shoot her, and then, when I wasn't quick enough, you did it for me. In front of me. With four guns, and a hell of a lot more than one bullet."

"Ianto..."

"Shut up, Jack."

"Ianto...I made a mistake, when I told you to..." Jack waved a hand in the air, and stopped. He knew that. He'd known it when they had stared at Ianto's crumpled form on the basement floor, screaming over the body of his girlfriend. Jack had never witnessed human heartbreak before, and when he did, he knew he had made a mistake. Not in killing the monster Lisa had become, but in letting Ianto be there for her death. In telling Ianto to kill her. And later, now, in letting Ianto out of his sight again. In letting Ianto dig himself into a wall of pain that Jack wasn't sure he could get him back out of.

"No shit," Ianto snarled, and he retreated into the kitchen. Jack followed, to take up Ianto's post in the kitchen doorway and watch him empty and rinse out the mug he had been cradling in his palms.

"How do I know that when I leave, you won't just kill yourself?" Jack whispered.

"Because I assure you, Jack, all my energy right now is being used up on you," Ianto spat.

"What do you mean?" Jack said.

Ianto turned on him, blue eyes blazing, and it was only the injuries to his chest that kept him from hitting Jack as hard as he possibly could.

"I fucking _hate _you, Jack Harkness! You hear me?! _I fucking hate you_!"

* * *

Owen was disposing of the leftover bits of an autopsy that had turned out to be rather messier than predicted when Jack finally showed up for work that day. He hadn't been in all morning, and Owen was beginning to wonder if he'd done the unwise and gone to speak to Ianto. From the dark look on Ianto's face whenever Owen mentioned Jack at their daily check-ups, Owen knew that the Welshman was harbouring one hell of a grudge.

Owen was proved morbidly right when Tosh crept down into the autopsy bay a little while later, biting her lip and looking anxious.

"What's happened?" he asked wearily as he washed his hands free of what he thought to be blood, but tests hadn't proved yet.

"Jack went to see Ianto," she said. "Apparently, Ianto said he hated him."

"I'm hardly surprised," Owen said dryly.

"Jack's not taking it too well," Tosh said quietly.

"Well, he'll have to deal," Owen said briskly. "Ianto should be back the beginning of next week. Unless we want everything to be even more awkward than it already was, Jack will have to get over himself."

"But..."

"He fucked up, Tosh," Owen said. "Ianto had royally screwed up, was blatantly going through his own private hell, and Jack made it worse. Hell, in Ianto's shoes, I'd hate Harkness too."

* * *

It was an...interesting reversal, when Jack thought about it. He had tried to bring the team together, as it seemed that he was Ianto's only contact with the others, and now it seemed that Owen and Tosh were rallying around Ianto, and Gwen didn't want to be involved at all. But he and Ianto had gone in completely opposite directions.

And that...hurt.

Jack felt like he had been used, when it came down to it. Ianto had played on Jack's interest, reeled him in, and completely distracted him. Maybe Jack shouldn't have been fooled, but he still felt like he'd been used. And he _liked _Ianto - who wouldn't?

When it came down to it, Jack wanted Ianto to like him in return. And he had been so sure that he did. But finding out about Lisa had destroyed that certainty. Now, he didn't know if Ianto had ever liked him, and right now, Ianto felt exactly the _opposite_.

And Jack, poor foolish Jack, couldn't stop _liking _Ianto.

He felt...torn.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: My apologies for missed typos. I've pulled a muscle in my arm so one hand isn't moving as it should be and I keep pressing the wrong keys. Sorry if I missed any in my proofread.**

**Also, the brilliant response to this fic (thank you all so much!) has fuelled the creative flames for a couple more chaptered Torchwood stories. Both Ianto centric, one completely AU and one an AU cut of 'Meat' and beyond. As yet untitled.**

**Chapter Five**

Ianto came back to the Hub over a week later, pleading trauma and exhaustion. Without Owen's direct word against that, Jack couldn't do anything about it, and Owen was wise enough to keep Jones and Harkness apart as long as was feasible. But, eventually, Ianto came back, mostly healed and looking better than he had in a long time.

Jack had decided to stay out of Ianto's way and at least be civil to him. It would take time - probably a long time, he knew - for Ianto to even come close to accepting him, and Jack's own anger was only held at bay by the fear of Ianto going through with some of the things he had written about on his account.

He hadn't slept since the night before he'd visited Ianto. The nightmares about those words had been vivid enough for his tastes.

Jack was forced to trust Tosh and Owen in their way of dealing with Ianto. Gwen seemed to be adopting the same strategy as Jack - she was coolly polite, but never initiated conversation or contact, and avoided it if she could. Tosh, however, became Ianto's friend - they even met outside of work, occasionally - and Owen actually started to fulfil his role as the doctor, and therefore, the medical confidante.

Jack only heard of this, of course, after Owen submitted the report for signing.

"I'm putting Ianto on sleeping pills," he said briskly, and Jack blinked.

"He's not sleeping?"

"Funnily enough, no," Owen said dryly. "For some weird reason, he keeps having bad dreams and waking up again."

Jack rubbed at his temples, before saying: "How can you be sure that's safe?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's suicidal, Owen..."

"I know," Owen said. "He told me. I wrung it out of him under the doctor/patient deal. Don't worry, nobody commits suicide on the bastards I'm giving him. They taste disgusting and you have to dissolve them in water."

"Why?"

"To stop people offing themselves," Owen shrugged. "Excellent for PTSD sufferers and severe insomniacs. He'll train himself to sleep without nightmares just so he won't have to take the bastards any more."

Jack eyed the doctor for a moment longer before signing the report. He had to know - Torchwood rules - about any medications his team were taking. Normally, there wasn't any remotely interesting - asthma medicines, hayfever pills, the occasional antibiotic treatment, and, for older, more long-term members, happy pills. But not usually anything you could kill a man with.

"You're sure?" he asked, handing it back.

"Yes, I'm sure," Owen said.

"He...talks to you, then?"

"Not much," Owen said. "Just what I need to be aware of, as his doctor."

"So he's still keeping everything inside?"

"I think Tosh is dealing with that."

* * *

It came to Jack some time later, watching Owen and Tosh bicker across a desk like children while Ianto calmly and silently fixed whatever Owen had broken on the machine, that their excursion had worked, but not as he'd wanted.

There was a time - even before they found out about Lisa - that this would not have happened. There was a time when Ianto basically came into the main area of the Hub to serve coffee or attend meetings. Otherwise, he was the invisible presence in the archive or the tourist office, and nobody knew anything about him whatsoever.

Jack knew the existence of the invisible one, and it was a lonely place to be.

The breach had not vanished - it had moved. Now, instead of Jack being Ianto's connection to the team, he was the one estranged from him.

And that hurt.

He missed Ianto, truth be told. He missed the little smirks and the flares of barbed wit and the casual flirting with him across the room, when nothing needed to be said. Ianto had become his little goal - make Ianto smile, make him laugh, make Ianto pay attention to him, make Ianto _care _about him.

He would, had the evening played over, had spared Lisa. She had to die. But he would have spared Ianto the sights and sounds of her death. He would have spared him as much as possible, and not taken him to the country to add to his collection of horrors.

Canary Wharf.

Lisa.

Cannibals.

And the worst part was that Jack knew it wasn't going to end there. There would be more - worse, maybe - and eventually, Torchwood would kill Ianto, as it had killed everybody else.

He kept up a happy facade for the others. He smiled at their jokes and encouraged Tosh when her attention wandered and Gwen started a theory that Tosh had gotten herself a boyfriend at long last. Jack had privately chuckled at the put-out expression on Owen's face when he first heard that, and once, he would have theorised with Ianto later about it.

But now, Ianto didn't want to know.

Ianto's routine had changed too. He started his day in the tourist office, came down around lunchtime, didn't eat with the team, made coffee, worked in the archives, and went home when everybody else did. Sometimes, Jack knew, he went home with Tosh or Owen, after a particularly bad day; sometimes he went alone.

But he didn't stay in one of the little rooms set aside in the Hub for overnight purposes.

Those overnights had a sinister edge now that Jack knew what Ianto had done with them, but he still missed his presence. Had Jack gone for a nightly wander, he could find Ianto and talk to him and flirt with him. He'd even watched him sleep a couple of times (Jack had a thing about watching Ianto sleeping, he'd discovered some time ago) because the CCTV was too grainy to get the same effect.

And he missed that.

* * *

Jack eventually made the first move.

It was a simple thing, really, as first moves in those instances often are.

He brought him a coffee.

The coffee machine had died, promptly and abruptly, after Ianto was late in to work and Owen kicked it in a fit of caffeine-deprived temper. The new one wouldn't be coming for a while, and Ianto had retreated to the archives to finish sorting out some collapsed shelving that had messed up the system rather epically.

And Jack had brought him his coffee from Tosh's trip to Starbucks.

He hadn't said anything, just put on the desk by Ianto's elbow and offered the Welshman a small, tame smile.

Although Ianto hadn't smiled back, his expression was surprised.

And his eyes were no longer cold.

Jack knew then that their breach would heal. And maybe it wouldn't go back to the way it was before, but after everything that had happened recently, he was glad to at least have it back to a cautious friendship.

Maybe, someday, he could work for more.

* * *

**End.**


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